Respect your point of view cxor but I disagree.
DFO is not rocket science, yes it has scope but to a generalist GMO type of manager it is only a small step above GMO. I used to give my wife, then a junior director in a big IT company some of the day to day challenges of the DFO back in the day, and she tossed them back like a soft ball.
You just need to have all your immediate staff levels onside. This is a serious difficulty with expat directors on CX. Your expert operations people will always create challenges, but if you don't have your local staff pulling for you, you are dead in the water.
Example, when as an expat manager you learn the local language to find out what the H... is going in the office, and who is doing the sabotage, the staff levels will quickly change to a patois using local slang.
The current DFO's remuneration in HK is a serious wedge, I know people in banks in HK with higher equivalent positions than a DFO who earn less. In international airlines it is also a higher than average remuneration for DFO equivalence outside of North America.
And then we get to competence. I have a feeling that as long as there is a suspect DFO in place, Merlin has his back covered and can apportion blame. If/When it goes t*ts up or gets sold cents on the dollar to a hedge fund there is a fall guy(ess).
Mind you when the the fuel hedges expire next year CX is going to be making one heck of a profit. I personally, and also as advised by a serious investment bank have been buying CX shares whenever they dropped below 12.
I have made investment mistakes before...